She had said something intelligible.

"What?" I asked.

"They were trying to kill me," she said. She spoke brittle Berliner German. I assumed that normally her voice would be less harsh than now.

"Really?" I said. She was walking half-running along the pavement. She obviously hadn't meant to say that. When I caught up with her she swung round like a slim blonde tiger and stood her ground. A man sized us up and said:

"Can I help you, Fraulein?"

She didn't look at him, but stared at me. "No." The man went away. She faced me with a cat's undivertibility.

"I'm not one of them, Fraulein Windsor." We both stood perfectly still.

"Who are you?"

"Not one of them."

"Leave me alone." The pupils still almost filled the blue, dilated in anger.

"Would you care for me to call a cab?" She hadn't taken ' Windsor ' but I persisted because she was shocked and might not have got it.

"I'll walk." No go with the C-group either. It was a thin bid anyway: the bastards had been after me all right but she believed they'd been after her, which could mean that she was with the Bureau. She wasn't, because she didn't respond. The Z Commission used several women; she might be one of them.

She was backing from me, hands in the pockets of her military-style coat. Before she could slip me I took a long shot. "They had no more luck this time than the last, did they?"

She stood still again, eyes narrow. "Who are you?

It had come off. They'd tried before. The first time they try, you don't always realise it, especially if it's meant to look like an accident. The second time, you get that certain feeling. She had it now.